Open-access content [Tanya Weaver](/authors/tanya-weaver) — Wed 2 Apr 2025
**Researchers in Germany have created a method to transform plastic packaging waste into high-quality 3D printed products.**
Single-use or throwaway plastic packaging is a major environmental hazard. This not only in terms of how it is produced – most are based on crude oil – but also what happens once they are disposed of, as most are not recycled.
In Germany alone, 5.6 million metric tons of plastic packaging winds up in household waste each year. Currently, less than a third of it can be recycled.
Working in partnership with Hochschule Bremen – City University of Applied Sciences (HSB), the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials (IFAM) aims to recycle post-consumer plastic waste into filaments that can be used to make high-quality 3D-printed products.
However, to be used in this process the waste has to meet stringent requirements for purity, shape and size, said Dr Dirk Godlinski, a project manager in the Composite Technology working group at Fraunhofer IFAM.
For the feasibility study, the researchers used polypropylene output from a sorting plant for packaging waste. This waste was then taken to HSB’s Laboratories for Circular Economy to be processed further.
It was ground up and washed, and any undesired material was separated from the main stream using float-sink separation. The team used near-infrared technology to identify any residual foreign plastics.
Once these were removed, the researchers ground down the material again until it reached the grain size required for compounding. This homogeneous recycled polypropylene had purity levels of more than 99.8%.
This material then went to the labs at Fraunhofer IFAM, where a solid plastic strand was produced using an industrial extruder.
The 2mm thick grey plastic strand was used directly as a filament in a commercial 3D printer. It has been used to successfully print components including caps.
The researchers are now optimising the production process. According to Godlinski, plastics can be further refined, for example, by introducing additives such as glass fibres during compounding. This will make it possible to produce higher quality components for use in fields such as aviation and the automotive industry.
This is a method that will be even more prevalent in the future, especially with new EU rules. Under the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation 2025/40 (PPWR) packaging must be composed of 10-35% recycled materials by 2030, depending on the type of plastic and the product, excluding medical devices and pharmaceutical products. The requirement for 2035 is 25-65% recycled materials.
Dr Silke Eckardt, a professor focusing on sustainable energy systems and resource efficiency at HSB, said: “Increasing the demand for recycled materials is important. Especially with regard to climate change, we need to think about resource efficiency. The circular economy is becoming more and more important.”
Godlinski concluded: “The more waste we reuse and recycle, the more energy and resources we can conserve.”
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